Global Solutions for the Aerospace Market

Space

Magellan has more than 50 years of experience providing customers with solutions for space missions that spans sounding rocket and payload, space shuttle payload, International Space Station payload, and satellite missions.

The SCISAT-1 mission, called Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE), is studying the chemical makeup of the ozone by collecting data on the absorption of the sun’s rays by the atmosphere during the sunrise and sunset of each orbit.

The SCISAT-1 payload consists of two instruments; both instruments are gathering information on the chemical constituents and dynamic processes occurring in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Magellan was responsible for the development, integration, and test of the MAC-100 small satellite bus; spacecraft level integration and environmental testing; supported integration with the launch vehicle; and provided training, commissioning, and operational support to the CSA.

SCISAT-1 continues to work flawlessly.

CASSIOPE

CASSIOPE is a multi-purpose mission to conduct both space science research and demonstrate an advanced telecommunications technology subsystem.

The CASSIOPE spacecraft design marks an important milestone for Canada. CASSIOPE is the first flight of Canada’s fully redundant, MAC-200 satellite bus.

The performance and science return available from CASSIOPE was previously thought by many in the space industry to be unobtainable in a spacecraft of this class. Every aspect of the spacecraft design from the hardware to the software and especially the on-board spacecraft computer subsystem, was tailored to keep the size, mass and cost within requirements.

CASSIOPE’s complement of nine different instruments makes it a tremendously useful scientific and engineering instrument, but also an extraordinarily challenging spacecraft to design. Each instrument has its own field of view, pointing requirements and power demands, which had to be compatible with all other payloads and bus systems. Many of the payloads require deployment sequences which change the spacecraft mass properties, thus complicating the attitude control modes.

CASSIOPE was launched in September 2013 on a Falcon 9 and continues to meet its full functionality.

RADARSAT Constellation Mission

The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) is a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) mission that will provide twenty-four-hour-a-day C-Band data to augment and extend the data that RADARSAT-2 users currently rely on.

The mission will support maritime surveillance (ship detection, ice monitoring and oil spill detection), disaster management and ecosystem monitoring. The primary areas of coverage are Canada and its surrounding Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic maritime areas. The launch is planned in 2018.

Magellan Aerospace will manufacture the three satellite buses, including the control systems, on-board computers, power generation and distribution systems, electronics, wiring, and on-board communication links with the ground. This includes the complete bus assembly, integration, and test, and will be carried out at Magellan’s facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba where other CSA missions including CASSIOPE and SCISAT-1 were also manufactured.

The RCM bus is based on Magellan’s MAC-200 small satellite bus that was first developed for the CSA’s CASSIOPE program. The MAC-200 design has been upgraded to accommodate the large, deployable C-band SAR antenna and to increase the power subsystem capacity for the radar payload. New GPS and propulsion subsystems have been added to support the precision orbit maintenance requirements. Upgrades have also been made to the bus avionics to support the seven-year mission lifetime.

Satellite Subsystems

Magellan has been building satellite subsystems for more than 15 years. Our heritage includes the SCISAT-1, CASSIOPE and RCM missions. Magellan has experience providing our customers with satellite subsystems solutions.

The MAC-200 C&DH is a compact PCI based computer system coupled with a powerful and unique suite of Magellan-manufactured peripheral cards that interface with digital and analog signals within the spacecraft subsystems and sensors. A C&DH unit consists of a processor card, data handling card, power supply card, and an I/O card. Additional interface cards can be added to meet unique mission interface requirements. The MAC-200 C&DH is an evolution of the successful MAC-100 C&DH flown on the SCISAT-1 mission, which was launched in 2003, and operates to this day.

A C&DH subsystem is comprised of two C&DH units, one operating with the spacecraft sensors and actuators, and one as a cold spare. The C&DH units are specifically designed to allow the input and output signals of each C&DH unit to be in parallel with each other for cold sparing capability. Each C&DH unit has a unit manager that is continuously powered from the Essential bus (ESS bus) and monitors system health. If a fault should occur the unit manager initiates an autonomous, nonrecursive C&DH unit switchover.

The Magellan power control unit (PCU) interfaces between the solar array, battery, and spacecraft power bus.

The Magellan Power Control Unit (PCU) plays a key role in the spacecraft bus as the interface between the Solar Array, the Battery and the Spacecraft power bus.During sunlit periods, the PCU directs solar power into the batteries using Direct Energy Transfer (DET).In parallel, the PCU transfers power from the batteries to the spacecraft bus while providing continuous telemetry on the health of the power bus.

The PCU can be scaled to the mission requirements. Anything from a 100W single string spacecraft through a 10kW, fully redundant architecture can be accommodated by the PCU. Card complement includes switch cards that include both high-side and low-side current limiting switches that can be configured as h-bridges. Pyrotechnic and propulsion cards that utilize an arm, enable, fire architecture on multiple fixed and variable timed switches. Solar array and battery cards that control energy transfer and power monitoring on the 28 +/-6V power supply.